Advertisement:

Pretty self explanatory, the Dramatic Pause is a beat or two of silence with no dialogue and little or no music/background sound. Usually done to heighten the anticipation before The Reveal. Also called a "Pregnant Pause", it can also follow the reveal... it's just that shocking! It's fairly common in situations where it takes a moment for the joke to sink in. In sequential art, it is often depicted by a Beat Panel.

A classic of mystery serials and soap operas would be to follow with a three-note sequence heralding The Reveal. As in, "Nobody leaves! There's been ...(Dramatic Pause)... a murder!" (DUN-DUN-DAAAH!) Basically, the dramatic equivalent of an "Applause" sign in a TV studio. Soap Operas often use a version of this called the Melodramatic Pause.

Compare Beat, which is shorter, and usually used for comedic effect. Also see Stop and Go for the musical version. Can turn into a Beam Me Up, Scotty! when fans routinely introduce a dramatic pause into a line that never had one. ("The question is ... do I feel lucky?") If it's just the music that stops, see Sudden Soundtrack Stop.

Advertisement:

Examples:

open/close all folders

Anime & Manga

In AIR, the music gets cut off right before Misuzu's famous "goal"-moment. After that, the immensely melancholic vocal version of that tune kicks in, which makes the sadness of the scene hit really hard.

In Neon Genesis Evangelion, when Shinji holds Kaworu in the hand of his Eva. The same frame lasts for about a minute before he finally crushes Kaworu!

Kara no Kyoukai has one of the most terrifying uses of the dramatic pause ever at the end of episode 2.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba comes back from the dead as a ghost to duel Yugi, a rematch for beating him earlier in the show. He makes his entrance at a dueling station with this line in the 4kids dub:

"It's me, Kaiba. And this time you don't stand (dramatic pause) a ghost of a chance."

Avenger is notorious for these. Pauses are long and drawn out; they often switch between two character's faces for their reactions. The problem with this is that it is an anime, and at least one such exchange occurs between the unemotional protagonist and the antagonist, whom you only see the lower face of. The worst was between the antagonist and a subordinate in another city.

Abused to hell and back by Crocus in One Piece, who ends anything he says with a long dramatic pause, complete with *WHAM* sounds, even when he's saying pretty irrelevant things. He lampshades it when the Straw Hats ask him to stop doing that, saying it's a Running Gag.

The fight between Charlotte and Yumichika is full of music and dialogue until the moment Charlotte appears to win. He clarifies to Yumichika what his final attack is doing, and suddenly.... silence. Even the music stops. Cue Glowing Eyes of Doom and Pre Ass Kicking One Liner as Yumichika proceeds to curb stomp Charlotte.

Done to powerful effect with Hitsugaya when he realises he's stabbed Hinamori instead of Aizen. Everything stops: characters, fighting, dialogue, music. Everything. And then the screen itself blacks out. And then Hitsugaya explodes.

Madam: I have... business interests in Uberwald. Alas, the situation there is becoming rather unstable. Vimes: Right. I see. And you'd like to have the significant pause type of business interests in Ankh-Morpork, I expect.

In Soul Music, Quoth the Raven gets fussed at by Death of Rats for giving the "DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN!" stinger before telling Susan Sto Helit who her grandfather is.

In The Truth, scrap magnate Harry King (who also happens to manage the city's "night soil" collection) warns William de Worde that his investment in the newspaper had better pay off or they'll be "in deep... trouble. Face downwards." William later mentions wanting to avoid "deep significant pause trouble" with Mr. King.

Angua is sometimes used to deliver this a a sort of running joke, although it also appears in Monstrous Regiment.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. The protagonist notes that Mike has been putting appropriate pauses in his speech to sound more human. He assumes that as Robots Think Faster, Mike just spends this interval doing something else, then goes back to the conversation.

Live-Action TV

In Auction Kings, anytime an expert looks at a signature, expect a pause before they announce if its authentic.

An episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (yes, it was a TV series briefly) has the punctuated sting performed by a trio of trumpeteers who always happen to be in the scene when it's called for. At one point, Wayne got so fed up he confiscated their trumpets, only for them to replace them with kazoos.

A favorite gag of The Daily Show, often with the addition of lowered stage lights and/or a dramatic camera-turn.

Occasionally the host in this situation will actually begin this last statement with something that implies that the contestant got the answer wrong ("You've done a great job..." etc.), before switching back and declaring the answer correct.

This was parodied to shreds in Whose Line Is It Anyway??; after every question the "host" would ramble on about how it's such a crying shame that the guest went all the way to New York just to win a million dollars!

And if there's a commercial break coming up, they'll often keep the dramatic pause up to end on a Cliffhanger, then start a new dramatic pause on the return and have even made answering the question an episode-ending Cliffhanger, though.

Also done to death on "results shows" for talent (or any other reality) programming. You can just tune in in the last five minutes of American Idol to see who's going home, and even then, Ryan's going to say "The person going home this week is..."

Parodied in an episode of Roger Mellie, the Man on the Telly in the adult comic Viz. In the first panel Roger is standing with the contestants. He says: "And the winner is..." He then walks off stage, drives away from the studio, spends the night in the pub, goes home to bed, gets up the next morning, eats breakfast, drives back to the studio and walks back on stage to announce the winner's name in the last panel.

Jeff Probst also uses the pause on Survivor when an elimination comes down to the last vote in the urn. When it doesn't, he just flips around the deciding vote while saying "Nth person voted out of Survivor..." which pretty much kills the drama of the vote. In earlier seasons, he would simply flip over the vote silently and let it speak for itself, which was much more climactic.

The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan does it quite a lot, both in his narration and his appearances at the end of each episode telling contestants whether they're eliminated or not. One time, a team actually broke down in giggles in the middle of his pause and told him to just get on with it already.

Played with in the Friends season 9 episode "The One with the Mugging" when Joey is auditioning for a part in a play directed by (and starring) Jeff Goldblum's character, and reads the stage direction 'long pause' aloud, thinking it's the name of the character he's addressing.

Ironically, he did actually pause, if only because he had to wait for the audience to finish laughing.

Joey also used this in a technique called "smell the fart acting": "I'm afraid the situation is much worse than we expected. Your sister is suffering from a.. (dramatic pause) subcranial hematoma."

This latter was actually because he forgot part of the line, and decided to cover it up by looking away from the camera with a distraught expression on his face.

Barney in How I Met Your Mother does this all the time. His mid-word pauses are Legen...wait for it...dary! He actually managed to hold the beat between two whole seasons one time, and once fell asleep partway.

My So-Called Life: The characters often pause mid-sentence, giving the dialogue a lurching and improvisational feel, even if the line is otherwise constructed very elegantly. Lampshaded when Rickie mimicks Mr. Katimski, who is probably the most egregious offender. But all the major characters did this a lot. In the case of Jordan Catalano, it was used to highlight how he was fumbling to come up with something, anything, to say.

That lurching sensation, mentioned before ... was further heightened by having the actors ... pause at just the right point in the sentence that the apparent meaning being expressed ... seemed to change after the pause.

Angela-V.O.: I felt like a really shallow person, because I was. (long Dramatic Pause) Hungry.

Clarkson once criticised Harry Enfield's impression of him by saying that he left out the ellipsis in the catchphrase.

Christmas 2009 had a well publicized battle for the Christmas number one spot in the British music charts between The X-Factor winner's cover of Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" and Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name". Radio 1 milked it for all it was worth, including a ten second long pause before they announced the #2 song (and thus, the #1 song).

Parodied one year at MTV's Movie Awards, hosted by Lisa Kudrow, when a category was announced as Best Dramatic Pause. After airing the nominees, Kudrow opened the envelope, and then began a Dramatic Pause that lasted until the next commercial break.

Every episode of Justice's short run did this before announcing the verdict.

Played with in The Vicar of Dibley, when the characters are rehearsing for a scene from the Nativity in which the angel (played by Geraldine) comes down to the shepards to tell of Jesus's birth. The comedy comes from Owen and Frank mistaking Geraldine's dramatic pauses for forgetting the lines and prompting her, causing her to lose her temper.

Geraldine: (narrating forcefully) And lo, an angel of the Lord appeared before them. Frank: (prompting) Be not afraid... Geraldine: No. BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!

On the night:

Geraldine: (in angel costume) Be not afraid, for I am an angel of the Lord, and I bring tidings of great joy.(Pauses dramatically, whilst her halo appears over her head.) Frank: (prompting) For tonight in the stable... Geraldine: I KNOW YOU PILLOCK!

This happens quite a few times in Reba. One example: Reba's comment regarding her dress for a beauty pageant she attended: "I feel overdressed... for Vegas."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In "Hush" the voices of everyone in Sunnydale are stolen by some demons, so Giles has to give his usual exposition via overhead transparencies, including one saying only "then" in order to include a suitable dramatic pause.

In the TV adaptation of Hogfather, actor Marc Warren gave Mr. Teatime a Verbal Tic of pausing before the last word of every sentence ("I guess I just see things...differently."). This added a level of creepiness to Teatime's soft-spoken Psychopathic Manchild characterization.

In the next-to-last episode of the The Shield, there is a pause that lasts almost a minute right before Vic Mackey confesses all of his crimes to Olivia under ICE's immunity.

Music

The Hives are famous for their high octane live performaces with the Almqvist brothers (lead singer and guitarist) jumping all over the stage (and sometimes into the audience). But during performances of their song Tick Tick Boom, the whole band suddenly freezes like statues for several seconds while the audience goes nuts around them. (Here for almost a minute starting at around 2.30) It's impressive.

The finale of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 has a big "Luftpause" indicated just before completing its first triumphal modulation into D major. The first movement of Symphony No. 2 has another big one in a passage repeated in the finale. Part I of Symphony No. 8 makes the chorus and orchestra take a big pause in the middle of a word.

Podcasts

Colonel Kepler of Wolf 359 speaks verrrrrrry slowly and uses...a lot...of these. It's probable that he does this just to put people on edge.

Pro Wrestling

Mr. Kennedy often announces his name, then makes a Dramatic Pause (which seems to keep growing longer) before repeating it.

Also used, and lampshaded in the original ECW by the Impact Players (Lance Storm and Justin Credible) - "That's not just the coolest, that's not just the best, that's from Calgary (dramatic pause) Alberta Canada". Commentator Joey Styles would frequently say 'Dramatic pause' during the 'Dramatic Pause'

A common variation (in e.g. Adrian Plass, and also Truth in Television) is for an actor in a play to use a Dramatic Pause, only for the clueless prompter to think he's forgotten his next line and loudly speak it for him.

In Twice Charmed, Lady Tremaine does this in the reprise of "In A Moment."

Lady Tremaine: There's still a chance she might be recognized from last night's ball, so show her how her life is insignificant and... small...

Theme Parks

The skipper in the JAWS ride at Universal Studios ends up doing this right after seeing the sinking remains of Amity 3.

Skipper: I don't know what could have done this out here, except.... except a shark.

Justice League villain Manga Khan soliliquizes as part of a medical condition, and demands his subjects make dramatic pauses before any important announcements.

Norbert of The Angry Beavers in one episode planned to foil Daggit's "Muscular Beaver" superhero persona (make-believe, of course) with his very own villain identity wherein he revealed himself as "Baron von Bad Beaver" followed by a "Dun-dun-duuunn!" to which he added for an even longer pause "Dramatic reverb!"

Used for completely non-dramatic reasons in an episode of Dave the Barbarian. At the end of the story, Dave appears, Behind The Scenes style, and, referring to something he'd done during the episode, says, "I bet a lot of you are wondering why I tied a squirrel to a megaphone." Dramatic Pause "Well, bye!"

Rainbow Dash: You're all outstanding competitors! But there can only be one of you who's number one! So the final, tie-breaking contest is going to beeee... [turns around, looks at camera]Pause for dramatic effect...A race against me! Through Ghastly Gorge! Dun dun duuuuuun!

Parodied in Futurama with Calculon, self-proclaimed master of the dramatic... pause!

Real Life

William Shatner is famous... for putting in lots... of dramatic... pauses... even in the... same... sentence. He is frequently... lampooned for this. This... may be related to his... constant need to... be... a Large Ham.

When called on this trait by The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, he explained that he adopted the mannerism because "I kept forgetting my lines." (Specifically, he had trouble remembering the technobabble on Star Trek.

The urban legend in theatre circles is that he was the understudy in a production of (insert famous play here), but didn't expect to be called in, so didn't bother studying his lines to the degree he should have. He was called in and performed with his now famous pauses. The review the next day praised his performance (specifically the pauses) and he's been doing it intentionally ever since. The tale is in all likelihood completely false, but still worth retelling.

Shatner may be famous for it, but he's a positively fluid communicator compared to B-grade actor Thom Christopher, best known as Hawk from Buck Rogers and to MSTies as Troxartes, the villain from Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell.

Troxartes: This has... nothing to do with... being rich! Tom Serveo: I put the... beats in my own... script and I'm... sticking with them!

U.S. President Barack Obama inserts a fair amount of these into his speeches.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau employed this move when asked to comment about President Donald Trump's heavy-handed addressing of raucous protests after the police murder of George Floyd. To emphasise the point of the difficulty of dealing with a President of a neighboring nation who has been known to be highly mercurial and angrily sensitive to any perceived insult, Trudeau kept silent for 21 seconds before giving a carefully worded diplomatic answer. For the most part, the media and public, while recognizing it was probably prepared, responded positively as a well-considered response in the face of such a delicate matter.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy